Here is a post from a guest blogger, Michael, on a Soldier’s tips for fitness

5 Fitness Tips from an Army Soldier to Stay Fit and Healthy

Traveling can teach you a lot of things. And if there’s someone whom you would always see during your travels, they are the army soldiers. Apparently, they travel anywhere from time to time. They get different assignments and posts which are inevitable. And it’s just suitable to wonder how they were able to manage their physical fitness and health.

Do they train always? Are there any restrictions when it comes to food consumption? How often they exercise?

These are only some of the probing questions that most people have for army soldiers. And it’s undeniable that they are physically fit and healthy because it’s largely part of the job. Nevertheless, here are some of their most helpful answers and tips that could help you with your fitness concerns:

Nutrition and Hydration

As a soldier, they get to have ready meals on hand. Apparently, they are being provided with sets of foods for the day. So, there are times that they cannot choose what food to eat and what not to. But, it is ensured that the food they consume will not be a factor that can deteriorate their physical strength and fitness.

Nevertheless, they make sure that the calories they are consuming are much lesser than the calories they burn. This means that there must be a control when it comes to eating. And while they are served with foods in the army, they make sure that they still follow their personal eating routines and practices.

These include the proper chewing, efficient vitamin and mineral consumption such as the best protein powder of today, and appropriate times of drinking water before and after a meal.

As for hydration, they give enough importance to this matter. Water is a very important factor in their fitness and health. In fact, it is much better for them to consumer lots of water than consuming lots of food.

2. Endurance and Strength

Endurance and strength are very important for every soldier in the army. So, they spend a great deal of time to improve these. Now, the best way to boost strength and endurance is to do resistance training on a daily basis.

Start with exercises that largely utilize the joints. These exercises would include squats and deadlifts. Once done with these routines, you can now move on to the additional exercises that will complement the primary sets. Lunges and pull-ups are great examples of these.

3. Flexibility

Flexibility is also a matter of importance for army soldiers. When you are flexible, the chances of obtaining injuries are very low. Hence, soldiers pay attention to their flexibility too.

During the flexibility training, it is important that you find comfort first even you don’t reach yet your goal. Safety is still the priority. Pushing your muscles to stretch beyond its maximum capacity for flexibility improvement would only strain you. So, starting with a few moves is fine until you already find comfort in pushing yourself to the limit.

4. Do quality reps over quantity

Soldiers would always go for quality over quantity. According to them, it’s useless to have hundreds of crunches if you are not doing it right. So, it’s better to have 3 repetitions of 20 quality crunches than pushing for 5 repetitions in one sitting.

And if you are really aiming for an effective fitness routine, you should do the same too. You must always keep in mind that quality is much more important than quantity.

5. Prep meals to help hit caloric goals

As mentioned above, soldiers get to eat packed and readily-prepped meals. Although they cannot choose what foods to eat because of this, they would take it as a positive thing as well. According to them, it helps them fully control their food consumption. When they are given scheduled meals, they only get to eat what is prepared for them. So, this hinders the unwanted cravings and the munching of in-between meals.

Accordingly, if you want to control your calorie intake on a daily basis, you should prepare your meals beforehand. This will enable you to mind what you eat and control your hunger and cravings.

Now, these tips from soldiers in the army are very challenging to do. But, it will definitely show you results. Also, there are more fitness routines that they do aside from the ones given above. So, the next time you see a soldier on your travel abroad, try to approach them and ask for other tips too!

2 responses to “5 Fitness Tips from an Army Soldier to Stay Fit and Healthy”

Hi, I have a question unrelated to the post above (apologies in advance). I am a reservist and an EXP with American Airlines. If I go on deployment for a long period of time, this will likely impact my ability to re-qualify for EXP in the next calendar year. Do the airlines provide some sort of extension for elite members who are in this situation? Thanks in advance.

@ Victor – I can’t say for sure about AA, but I have had UA and AS extend my status on both my deployments. Contact their elite line and ask them where you can send your orders to show them your situation. They will usually extend for any portion of the calendar year that you deploy – so two years typically.